THE KEY TO THE MYSTERY.
“Following along the lines of your theory,” continues Ashley, “if Ralph
Felton rose from the corpse of Roger Hathaway and confronted his father
upon the threshold of the cashier’s office, that dramatic meeting would
explain many things. It would explain the startled glance that Cyrus
Felton shot at his son—I was studying the faces of both—when the latter
refused to state at the inquest where he had spent the time between 7:45
and 8:30 on the evening of Memorial Day. It would account for the
carrying off of the cashier’s revolver and its subsequent burial among
the waters of Wild River; for young Felton’s flight, and for the extreme
agitation of the elder Felton ever since the night of the killing.”
“And,” adds Barker, “it would satisfactorily clear up the interim of
fifteen minutes between the time Cyrus Felton should have reached the
bank and the moment when the sheriff was notified. In fact, if the
Felton family is responsible for the death of Roger Hathaway there must
be some understanding between father and son. But we will now proceed to
the consideration of an important character in our tragedy—Ernest
Stanley.
“Two years ago, while the directors of the Raymond National Bank were
holding their annual meeting, the teller stepped into the room and
announced that a stranger had presented at the bank for payment a check
for $1,000, signed by Cyrus Felton.
“‘Impossible!’ exclaimed that individual, who was presiding over the
directors’ meeting. ‘Let me see the check.’ The teller produced it, and
Felton at once declared it a forgery, and a bungling one at that. An
officer was quickly summoned and Ernest Stanley, who had presented the
check, was arrested.
“His trial in the Mansfield County Court was short. The forgery was
proved and the young man was sentenced to three years in the state
prison at Windsor. In his own defense—he had no money with which to
employ a lawyer—Stanley stated that the check had been given to him two
days before he presented it, by a casual acquaintance who claimed the
name signed to the bit of paper. It was in payment of a gambling debt
and the transaction occurred in Phil Clark’s well-known lair of the
tiger on Fifth Avenue, New York.”
“Which, by the way, is no more,” puts in Ashley. “The place was closed
out six months ago and Phil is now in ’Frisco.”
“It was in existence during Stanley’s trial,” resumes Barker, “and the
trial was adjourned a couple of days while his improbable story was
looked up. As was expected, neither Phil nor any of the habitues of his
place knew of such a person as Ernest Stanley, much less such a
transaction as he alleged to have occurred there.
“Stanley received his sentence calmly. Beyond stating that his age was
26 and his occupation that of a bookmaker he refused to furnish any
details of his birth, early life or present residence. He served two
years of his sentence and was pardoned by the governor this last
Memorial Day. Strangely enough, the pardon was secured by the man whose
name he was alleged to have forged—Cyrus Felton. Now, what feelings do
you suppose actuated Felton in securing a remission of a year in the
prisoner’s sentence? Compassion?”
“What should you say were I to suggest the word ‘remorse’?” replies
Ashley.
“I should say,” declares the detective, with a smile of approval, “that
you had hit upon the very word. It is plain that you foresee what I am
leading up to.”
“To the theory that Stanley was innocent of the forgery and that the
check was given to him by Ralph Felton?”
“Exactly. It will be difficult to prove, but if it can be proved it will
have an important bearing on the Hathaway mystery. It will show Ralph
Felton’s capacity for wrongdoing and will enable us to surmise to what
extent Cyrus Felton would shield his son from conviction of a crime. At
the time the check was presented Ralph Felton was supposed to be in New
York, and as he had been for some time more or less of a trial to the
old man the latter doubtless suspected in an instant what we are
assuming to have been the truth. He had to decide between his son and a
stranger, and, as usual, the stranger suffered.”
“What led Stanley to attempt to cash the check in Raymond?” debates
Ashley.
“Well, if he was a stranger in New York he would find it impossible to
cash it at any of the banks in that city. Why not run up to Raymond and
cash it at the bank on which it was drawn? I forgot to say that at the
trial Stanley alleged that his acquaintance of the gambling rooms
claimed to be a Vermonter and appeared to have plenty of money.”
“And he did not hazard the suggestion that this acquaintance was the son
of the man whose name was forged?”
“He did not know that there was a son. To prove this, if the visitor at
Cyrus Felton’s house on the evening of Memorial Day was the released
prisoner of Windsor, note his surprised reply to the housemaid, ‘I did
not know there were two Feltons.’”
“True,” admits Ashley. “Keep along, old man.”
“If Stanley was that visitor,” pursues the detective, “his object in
revisiting Raymond was to obtain revenge for the wrong that had been
done him.
“When he arrived at Raymond, at 7:45, he went directly to Felton’s
house. Failing to find the bank president at home, he obtained
directions as to where Felton’s office was and proceeded to the bank
block. The office, which is on the second story, at the south end of the
block, was dark and Stanley returned to the street. As he stood in front
of the bank and thought of the day, two long years before, when he
stepped from its portals with a constable gripping his arm, he noticed a
light in the rear. Perhaps Felton was within. So he pushed open the door
and—”
“Hold on a bit. How does the bank door come to be open? You are assuming
a great deal this time, Barker,” laughs Ashley.
“I am assuming that he got into the bank some way or other,” retorts the
detective. “If not—and here I will quote your own words when you
imparted to me your valuable discovery—‘What was Stanley doing at 6
o’clock the next morning asleep in the bushes in a lonely gorge near
South Ashfield village?’
Ashley laughs merrily. “I was expecting that,” he says. “But I’ll be
hanged if I will believe that an Edmond Dantes sort of a chap like
Ernest Stanley is capable of—”
“Permit me to suggest that Ernest Stanley may be a cheap criminal
instead of an Edmond Dantes,” interrupts Barker, with a withering
sarcasm that only increases Ashley’s good humor. “We have given him a
good character simply to suit our present theory. He may have really
forged old Felton’s name, and his visit to Raymond may have been
actuated by a base desire for revenge upon a stern justice meted out to
him. Alone in the bank with Roger Hathaway and the open vault, murder
and robbery may have come natural to him. We know nothing that should
lead us to decide that he was a much-abused young man.”
“Yet you believe he is, I’ll wager,” asserts Ashley.
“I confess that I do. A man would be half a dozen kinds of a fool to
forge the name of the president of a bank and present the check for
payment at the latter’s own bank. Still what evidence we have against
Stanley is strong. We can account for the flight of Derrick Ames on the
simple elopement theory. We can explain the levanting of Ralph Felton on
the theory that he refused to establish an alibi because it would
necessitate the confession of an acquaintance with ‘Isabel Winthrop,’
when he was an ardent suitor for the hand of Helen Hathaway, and on the
further supposition that he has gone to hunt for the woman he insanely
loved. We can explain the nervous condition of Cyrus Felton on the
assumption that he fears his son was implicated in the bank robbery and
trembles for his safety. But we cannot explain why Ernest Stanley fled
from Raymond the night of Memorial Day and hurried over mountain and
stream and through forest, chased like a wild beast, until he found a
haven of refuge. The open bank door is the break in the chain of
evidence against him, and that may be mended by assuming that the
cashier forgot to lock the door behind him when he entered the bank.
“We must find Stanley,” Ashley promptly declares.
“And there are others to be found,” the detective rejoins dryly. “But
especially must we run down Stanley. I am convinced that he is the key
to the mystery, and when we have located his position in this puzzling
case I believe that the rest of the race will be plain sailing.”
“I fear it will be a long, stern chase.”
“Such chases usually are,” remarks Barker, composedly. “I have already
set the machinery in motion, and the police of the entire country are on
the lookout for a chap answering Stanley’s description. What makes our
task the harder is the probable fact that Stanley is not a member of the
criminal class, and so a comparatively easy channel of pursuit is
closed. He presumably made for New York, and somewhere in that busy
human hive we may run across him.”
“Then our labors at this end of the road are about completed?”
“Nearly so. To-morrow morning, before the village is astir, we will go
a-fishing. If we find what we expect the case may be precipitated a bit.
Otherwise we will shift the scene of our operations to New York, after I
have pumped the servants in the Felton family and inquired as far as is
possible into the affairs of the bank. Is your vacation about wound up?”
“It will be in a day or so. I have nothing to keep me here longer except
a pleasant duty that I owe to myself.”
“And that is—”
“To make an unprofessional call upon Miss Louise Hathaway.”
“Ho! Sits the wind in that quarter?” laughs the detective.
“Don’t be absurd, my friend,” smiles Ashley. “Miss Hathaway interests me
only as would a statue of the Venus de Milo.”
“Indeed? Still, men have lost their hearts to a statue.”
“In books and plays. If we are to arise at daybreak I would suggest the
advisability of retiring.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------